Monday, December 28, 2015

We are coming to the end of another year and it is time to start
reflecting on all of the awesome stuff that I've read throughout the
year.

Here then, are my top nine author discoveries of 2015, in no particular order except alphabetical. In the spirit of
acknowledging that there is always something or someone I’ve missed,
either by a slip of memory or just lack of opportunity, the traditional
tenth spot on my list remains blank.

1. Rachel Bach: I pretty well devoured Bach's space opera Paradox trilogy featuring Devi Morris. She has written a number of fantasy novels as Rachel Aaron, but I'd love to see more SF from her.r

2. Robert Jackson Bennett: Bennett has been on my radar for a number of years, and I've always meant to pick up American Elsewhere. But then he wrote City of Stairs. And I read it. I loved it. City of Blades will be published in January and I shall read that, too. I plan to go back and read his other stuff.

3. Jim Butcher: Until Skin Game was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2015, I had never read Jim Butcher. Now, I understand that it was the 15th book in a series, but it held up fairly well on its own and has me interested enough to go give the rest of the series a shot. I haven't yet, but now I actually want to.

4. Gail Carriger: I was charmed and delighted by Soulless, a novel of manners and vampires and werewolves in Victorian London. I really shouldn't wait much longer to read Changless

5. Becky Chambers: I thoroughly enjoyed The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and I firmly believe that universe is such that she could write a number of books in it - preferably a couple more with the crew of the Wayfarer, but it's a rich enough universe to support a whole lot of fiction. I hope she writes it.

6. Eric Flint: Flint is the author of some 8000 novels with another twenty coming each month. Or something like that. That's how it feels. He is possibly most notable for his semi-shared world 1632, featuring a mining town up and thrown back into the year 1632 in Germany. Changes to history ensue. I've only read a couple of the 1632 books but have enjoyed seeing how stuff is playing out and have every intention to read more. One of those authors I should have read a long time ago.

7. Sylvia Moreno-Garcia: Her debut novel, Signal to Noise, was fantastic and is one of the year's best. I will read anything else she writes.

8. Diana Rowland: I am an avowed fan of her White Trash Zombie novels featuring Angel Crawford. They're so good, I read all five of them this year. Rowland has suggested that #6 is forthcoming in 2016. I can't wait.

9. Neal Stephenson: Yes, it is thoroughly possible that Seveneves was the first novel I've read of Stephenson, despite his giant reputation and landmark novels. Destroy the moon in the first sentence, I'll read your book.